MELBOURNE.

Otago Witness, Issue 299, 22 August 1857, Page 7

MELBOURNE.

"Wool/. — An important gale took place on Thursday, at Mr. Goldsbrough's stores. The major portion of the lots disposed of consisted of several fine samples of New Zealand wool, with reference to the quality of which it will be noted that Mr. Goldbrough favourably reports as follows :—": — " A sale of wool was this day held at my stores. 441 bales were offered, amongst which were two shipments from New Zealand consisting of 130 bales, ex Gil Bias, from Otago ; and 102 bales, ex Highlander, from the Canterbury settlement ; which realized first-rate prices ; indeed, the competition was such as unmistakably showed the estimation our buyers have of this class of wool ; and should our friends in New Zealand pay a little more attention to the getting up of futme clips, we have no hesitation in saying that their shipments will take a first rank, not only in this, but the English markets." Annexed we give marks and prices of the lots offered. Ex Highlander, from Lyttelton, New Zealand —Fleece, A D Fuller, 1 bale, 20|d. ; do. J B C, 1 do. 20|d. ; do. J ML, 2 do. 2Hd. ; do. B, 1 do. 15d. ; do. RC, 1 do. 15d. ; do. G S, 7 do. 2l£d. ; do. TW in heart, 10 do. 2s ; do. J&L, 13 do. 21Jd. ; do. G D, 1 do. 19|d. ; do. A, 5 do. 2l£d. ; do. MD, 64 do. 23 id. ; slipe, CS, 32 do. pressed ; scoured, C, 32 do. 25. ; do. 0, 35 do., passed. — Argus, June 29. [The prices of the wool, ex Gil Bias, are not quoted.]

The Scotch Baker and his Two Wivks. A Scotch baker from Edinburgh was hired by the golden promises of Mormon teachers, and baptized a member of the community. Finding it vain s to try to shake the Presbyterian persuasion of his wife, he perfidiously resolved to emigrate without her, and thus left her — provided for, indeed, but unprotected — in the decline of life. She soon received a letter from him, telling of plenty and fortune, and resolved to join her old man beyond seas. She sold off, and at an advanced age crossed the ocean and the wilderness, braving civilized and savage marauders ; and at last, as she neared the place, with anxious inquiries after him she sought, she heard that Golightly and his wife were both well, and living very comfortably. " Surely, mon," she exclaimed, " you mak' a mistake ; Golightly has nae ither wife but me." Her informant insisted, that he had taken a spiritual Avife. " A spiritual wife, — I dinna ken the kind." She found, heartbroken, that it was too true, and fell back in her waggon in a swoon. The false one endeavoured to restore and lift her into the house. "Na, na," she cried, "my foot shall never cross the threshold of the house that contains anither wife ; this waggon shall be my house and my children's house j" "and," adds our author, "she never goes anywhere out of her waggon but into the shop. But the old lady asked me, ' Who do you think he married ? Surely naebody but our auld cook from Edinburgh, a dirty wench that I turned out of my door for impertinence; she followed the old man, and induced him to marry her, telling him that I never intended to come but to him." — liicidents of Travel in the Far West.

Speculation : Money Making. — To make money, and to make it rapidly, is one of the accredited social sciences of which the great multitude are the dull students, and the select few the practised adepts. But its spirit - is nevertheless universal ; and, without any exaggeration, it may be said to form a part of the lite and active aspiration of the present generation. It pervades all classes, from the noble, in his palace, to the artizan in his cottage. Its generic form is speculation ; and if we cast a glance around society, we shall be amazed at its extent and influence. Everybody in these days speculates. The man who " has no speculation in his eye" is considered as only fit to be a hermit, we were going to say a parson, but as the cloth is well dyed in the yellow of Mammon, we will say a Bedlamite, or a philosopher with " spectacles on nose," who look at ships and cotton-mills, and wonders what they are. We find the merchant in his counting house, is a speculator. He subscribes to great adventures for the sake of great gains, probably otherwise. He knows he cannot trade without risking much, and the profit and loss account in his ledger is consequently the fervid page on which his attention is constantly fixed. It is the same with the banker ; " he lends at usury," under the disguise of discount, so that he is pre-eminently a speculator, morally obnoxious, but expediently useful. The manufacturer and trader follow in succession ; then come the intermediate and lower classes, the catalogue of whose doings would fill the largest blue-book that ever was imagined by the most enthusiastic collector of statistics. Finally, we have the gambling fraternity— men " who work the oracle" in the city as well as at the "corner." This is the lowest and vilest description of speculation, for we find the betting and dice-throwing vagabonds robbing and murdering one anothe? ; the city men forging dock-warrants, embezzling the money of depositors in their banks, and crossing ledgers to delude 'an unsuspecting proprietary. — Hunt's' (New York) Merchants' Magazine.